I’m enjoying my summer vacation, but I’m also planning for next year! I can’t help it; I love my job. One thing I do when I have new students is to give them an interest inventory. The purpose of this is to find out their likes/strengths so I can incorporate them into the lesson whenever possible. Here is a word document of the interest inventory I use, so that you can tweak it for your class:

One thing I do recommend is reading the questions aloud to the class. I use this with new students the first couple of days of school, and I don’t know what their reading levels are yet, and I definitely don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable! Read the questions aloud offering your own answers as examples (you should fill one out too, so you can play the following game with your students.)

Last year, I realized that I was finding out information about the students, but that they weren’t necessarily getting to know each other, so I created “Find Somebody Who....” I have attached a word document of the game below, so you can edit (if needed) and adapt it for your class. Enjoy! We played it last year, and it was a lot of fun. Be sure to put on short music clips in addition to, or as opposed to, a timer. Students need that background noise to feel comfortable talking. Be sure you get in there too; I won third place last year, and this year I’m going for the gold!